1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for preparing safe electronic notarized documents in electronic commerce. Particularly, the present invention relates to a method for preparing safe electronic notarized documents in electronic commerce, in which in the case where a remote transaction is carried out through an on-line system between a customer and a merchant, when preparing an electronic notarized document for proving the realization of the transaction, an encrypted safe notarized document is formed so as to prevent a forgery of the document.
2. Description of the Prior Art
As a security technique which is provided in the electronic commerce at present, there is an X509-based certificate which attests as to whether the merchant and the customer have respectively proper qualifications. However, the certificate which proves only the reliabilities of the merchant and customer cannot provide an authenticity proving for the details of the on-line transaction between the merchant and customer.
FIG. 1 illustrates the constitution of the conventional electronic transactions using the certificate technique. The conventional electronic transactions will be described referring to FIG. 1.
Referring to FIG. 1, the conventional electronic transaction system includes: a merchant 20 for selling commodities through electronic transactions; a customer 10 for buying commodities; a card acquirer 40 for handling the buying slips to be used by the customer 10; a card issuer 50 for issuing the cards; a certifying organization 30 for attesting the reliabilities of the merchant 20, the customer 10 and the card acquirer 40.
An electronic transaction starts first by requesting (101) for a communication connection and an exchange of the reliability certificates from the customer 10 to the merchant 20. Then the customer 10 requests for reference (102) for the reliability certificate of the merchant 20 to the certifying organization 30, while the merchant 20 requests for a reference (103) for the reliability certificate of the customer 10 to the certifying organization 30. Then the certifying organization makes references to the reliability certificates, and notifies the results of the references to the customer 10 and the merchant 20 (104, 105).
Thus when the certifications for the customer 10 and the merchant 20 are completed, a mutual transaction is realized. That is, the customer 10 inspects the commodity information of the merchant 20, and selects (106) a commodity. Then the customer 10 notifies (107) to buy the selected commodity to the merchant. The merchant 20 request (108) for payment for the commodity to the customer 10.
Then the customer 10 furnishes (109) his (or her) own payment information to the merchant 20. The payment information includes the payment method (the kind of the card) and the card number. Based on the payment information of the customer 10, the merchant 20 requests (110) for a payment for the commodity bought by the customer 10 to the card acquirer 40. Then the card acquirer 40 requests (111) for a reference to the reliability certificates of the customer 10 and the merchant 20 to the certifying organization 30. When the reference results are received (112) from the certifying organization 30, the card acquirer 40 requests (113) for a payment to the card issuer 50.
In accordance with the request (113) of the card acquirer 40, the card issuer 50 executes (114) the payment. Then the card acquirer 40 sends the card certificate 115 to the merchant 20. Then the merchant 20 sends (116) the selected commodity and a receipt to the customer 10. The card issuer 50 issues a debit note for the payment to the card acquirer 40 so as to request (117) a payment to the customer 10. Then the customer 10 pays (118) based on the debit note to the card issuer 50.
However, in the above described conventional electronic transactions, a notarization cannot be provided, and therefore, if there occurs a dispute between the customer and the merchant, there can be no solution.